"Ignobly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... race at all! Splendid and beautiful and courageous people must come together and have children, women with their fine senses and glorious devotion must be freed from the net that compels them to be celibate, compels them to be childless and useless, or to bear children ignobly to men whom need and ignorance and the treacherous pressure of circumstances have forced upon them. We all know that, and so few dare even to whisper it for fear that they should seem, in seeking to save the family, to threaten its existence. It is as if a party of pigmies in a not too ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... while the Danes held a public mourning for the fate of Balder. He, feeling no doubt of his impending death, and stung by the anguish of his wound, renewed the battle on the morrow; and, when it raged hotly, bade that he should be borne on a litter into the fray, that he might not seem to die ignobly within his tent. On the night following, Proserpine was seen to stand by him in a vision, and to promise that on the morrow he should have her embrace. The boding of the dream was not idle; for when three days had passed, Balder perished from the excessive torture of his wound; and his body given ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the two gold watches), poured the chocolate out. It was impossible for Monseigneur to dispense with one of these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have been the blot upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly waited on by only three men; he must have died ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... had some reverence for George II. 'Reverenced his Office,' says a simple reader? Alas, no, my friend, man does not 'reverence Office,' but only sham-reverences it. I defy him to reverence anything but a Man filling an Office (with or without salary) nobly. Filling a noble office ignobly; doing a celestial task in a quietly infernal manner? It were kinder perhaps to run your sword through him (or through yourself) than to take to revering him! If inconvenient to slay him or to slay yourself (as is oftenest likely),—keep well to windward of him; be not, without necessity, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... despite the fact that the encounter with Mrs. Brenton's new theology had left him feeling most ignobly weak. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... the truth from her? As she knew what he never would have told her an hour later, had she a right to recede from the position she had taken in response, simply because she could and he could not? Should she ignobly ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... Vernon and Wentworth received orders to return to England with such troops as remained alive; these did not amount to a tenth part of the number which had been sent abroad in that inglorious service. The inferior officers fell ignobly by sickness and despair, without an opportunity of signalizing their courage, and the commanders lived to feel the scorn and reproach of their country. In the month of June the new colony of Georgia was invaded ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... nothing more to do with Annie. Such is life! Such is man! Such is the terrible egoism of man! And thus it was that, for the sake of wounded pride, John and Robert not only did not speak to one another for ten years, but they spoilt at least one of their lives; and they behaved ignobly to Annie, who would certainly have married either one ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... ease believe we what we wish! Rise, Dolabella; if you have been guilty, I have contributed, and too much love Has made me guilty too. The advance of kindness, which I made, was feigned, To call back fleeting love by jealousy; But 'twould not last. Oh, rather let me lose, Than so ignobly trifle with his heart. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... their images upon our personality, they fill our aura with beauty or ugliness according to our intents and purposes in life.'' Each evil thought or action has its pursuing phantom, each smile or kindly deed its guiding angel, we leave wherever we ignobly stand, a tomb and an epitaph to haunt us through the furnace ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... woman—as a woman, intensely ambitious, seeking to connect herself with every powerful influence—the princess loved this strange species of contrast. She found it curious and interesting to see this man, almost in rags, mean in appearance, and ignobly ugly, and but lately the most humble of subordinates look down from the height of his superior intelligence upon the nobleman by birth, distinguished for the elegance of his manners, and just before so considerable a personage in the Society. From that moment, as the more ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the voice and cried: "Dost thou my kingly bribes disdain? Yet shalt thou barter soul and pride For things ignobly vain! ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... being miserable, we are also disloyal, then we are insensibly degraded—so insensibly, perhaps, that we are not conscious of any part of the process, and only become aware of what has been going on when we have to face a crisis, and find ourselves prepared to act ignobly, and to justify the act with specious excuses." She glanced up at the mantelpiece. "Come," she said, "it is four o'clock, and I am sleepy. I must go ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... Napoleonic method of entirely novel design for the sudden parting of the rich from their possessions. Any university which attempted to add a School of Peculation to its curriculum and ignored the daily papers as a positive source of inspiration to the highest artistry in the profession would fail as ignobly as though it should forget to teach the fundamental principles ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... another, would not wind; a self-binding reaper that, in his neighbor's field, would not perform its part; and a lamp that was designed to manufacture the gas that it burned from the water in its bowl, but which dismally and ignobly failed. He had contrived and patented a machine for milking cows, which might have done all that was claimed for it if anybody—cows included—could have been induced to give it a trial, and he had fiddled around with perpetual motion ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... resolves attend, Which nor Atrides nor his Greeks can bend; Long toils, long perils in their cause I bore, But now the unfruitful glories charm no more. Fight or not fight, a like reward we claim, The wretch and hero find their prize the same. Alike regretted in the dust he lies, Who yields ignobly, or who bravely dies. Of all my dangers, all my glorious pains, A life of labours, lo! what fruit remains? As the bold bird her helpless young attends, From danger guards them, and from want defends; In search of prey she wings the spacious air, And with the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... bow the old King to his Grave, even that would not leave me Imoinda free; but still that Custom that makes it so vile a Crime for a Son to marry his Father's Wives or Mistresses, would hinder my Happiness; unless I would either ignobly set an ill Precedent to my Successors, or abandon my Country, and fly with her to some unknown World ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... Adams, of a certain letter which he wrote me. For so long as I am not openly recognised and suitably sustained by Congress, my precarious condition here is cruel, in the midst of the Anglomanes, who wish to see me perish ignobly, and in the bosom of a family whose complaints and reproaches I fear more than death. Mr Laurens, in his hasty passage through this country, was perfectly sensible of it. He knows that I serve the United States constantly, without respect of persons. "You have been slighted," are his own words; ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... There were other considerations, the first of which was that I already had two or three recruits in use, notably a young person with big feet, in alpaca, from Kilburn, who for a couple of years had come to me regularly for my illustrations and with whom I was still—perhaps ignobly—satisfied. I frankly explained to my visitors how the case stood, but they had taken more precautions than I supposed. They had reasoned out their opportunity, for Claude Rivet had told them of the projected edition de luxe of one of the writers of our day—the rarest ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... gravity, there suggested themselves to him projects of a career, of reform, and the wish to profit by the lessons that had been latterly taught by destiny. Already, remembering the promise which he had given to de Gery, for the household troop that wriggled ignobly at his heels, he made exhibition of certain disdainful coldnesses, a deliberate pose of authoritative contradiction. He called the Marquis de Bois l'Hery "my good fellow," imposed silence very sharply ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... a pinch of thy wild dust, Blown back to flame, would set our world on fire; Thy face amid our timid counsels thrust Would light us back to glory and desire, And swords flash forth that now ignobly rust; Maenad and Muse, upon thy lips of flame. Madness too wise might kiss a clod ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... more direct and far-reaching services which he was intent upon rendering to all civilized peoples. Extreme religionists may audaciously fancy that the judgment of God upon Franklin may be severe; but it would be gross disloyalty for his own kind to charge that his influence has been ignobly material. ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... himself with two assistants close behind him, one of them sallow with a mean-looking face and an expression of devouring envy in his glance, the other wearing a collar and straps drawn very tightly, with a sort of thimble of black taffeta on his index-finger—and both ignobly dirty, with greasy necks, and the sleeves of ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... man who ought to have spoken—the man who had such a chance as few men have off the stage—who could have confounded these villains in a breath, and saved the wretched Rattray at once from them and from himself—that unheroic hero remained ignobly silent in his homely hiding-place. And, what is more, he ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... despair we are inwardly dumb. But observe the holders of imaginary conversations. They are conquerors to the last one. They administer stinging rebukes that leave the adversary writhing. They rise to Alpine heights of pure wisdom and power, leaving him to flounder ignobly in the mire of ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... speech of Titus we may clearly see the notions which the Romans then had of death, and of the happy state of those who died bravely in war, and the contrary estate of those who died ignobly in their beds by sickness. Reland here also produces two parallel passages, the one out of Atonia Janus Marcellinus, concerning the Alani, lib. 31, that "they judged that man happy who laid down his life in battle;" the other of Valerius Maximus, lib. 11. ch. ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... the creation of light over darkness. With his pious and believing heart he could easily enter into that theme, and show with matchless power and skill the closing-in of those ancient foes, and the victory of light when darkness cowered and ignobly shrank away." The expression of delight over this victory is very well brought out, not only in the music, but also in the arrangement of the Scriptural texts, which begin with exhortations of praise, and appeals to those who ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... some reminder, at the violent motion, of his wound, suggests to his madness its next wild fancy, that a sort of glory is in a streaming wound, such as he bore while fighting Morold, that he will meet Isolde in the same manner, gloriously bleeding, not ignobly constrained by a bandage. And prompted by some obscure instinct perhaps to relieve a torture of which his flaming brain will not permit him duly to take account, he tears the wrappings from his wound, shouting with gladness, and bidding ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... is, in his eyes, a Philistine. This is why Heine so often and so mercilessly attacks the liberals; much as he hates conservatism he hates Philistinism even more, and whoever attacks conservatism itself ignobly, not as a child of light, not in the name of the idea, is a Philistine. Our Cobbett[144] is thus for him, much as he disliked our clergy and aristocracy whom Cobbett attacked, a Philistine with six fingers on every hand and on ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... and Perseus to stop making campaigns against them; Antiochus would have given much, his children and descendants would have given much to let them remain on European soil. But those men in view of the glory and the greatness of the empire did not choose to be ignobly idle or to enjoy their wealth in confidence, nor did the elders of our own generation who even ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... storm the town; we are thirty gallant fellows, and I have heard the garrison is not more than three hundred." But the rest of the party thought such a way of getting supper was not a very cheap one, and, grovelling knaves, preferred rather to sleep ignobly and without victuals, than dare the assault with Otto, and die, or conquer ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... hath rebuilt,—then, when the trumpets are sounding thy rights without the answer of a foe; then, when from shore to shore of fair England the shout of thy people echoes to the vault of heaven,—then will Warwick kneel again to King Henry, and sue for the pardon he hath not ignobly won! ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... treatment of the young prince, while not actually ending in the murder he had planned, drives the boy to attempted escape and to death. The nobles rise and welcome the Dauphin, whose invasion of England proves fruitless, it is true, but the victory is not won by John, and the king dies ignobly at Swinstead Abbey. ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... suspect the designs and hopes of his former comrades; and he could not, he would not believe them capable of ignobly ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... grove? You, the De Young whose splendor bright and brave Is phosphorescence from another's grave— Till now unknown, by any chance or luck, Even to the hearts at which you, feebly struck? You whip a rascal out of office?—you Whose leadless weapon once ignobly blew Its smoke in six directions to assert Your lack of appetite ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... but you summon up all your reserves of base hypocrisy and remark, "Poor fellow! Poo-poo-poo-ole fellow!" You really mean, "I should like to tomahawk you, and scalp you afterwards!"—but this sentiment you ignobly retain in your own bosom. You lift one leg in an apologetic way, and poodle instantly dashes at you with all the vehemence of a charge of his compatriots the Cuirassiers. You shut your eyes and wait ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... that makes a person wish to preserve the look of independence; she did not in the least pretend that she knew at present what would become of her. I forebore to touch particularly on that, however, for I certainly was not prepared to say that I would take charge of her. I was cautious; not ignobly, I think, for I felt that her knowledge of life was so small that in her unsophisticated vision there would be no reason why—since I seemed to pity her—I should not look after her. She told me how her aunt had died, very peacefully at the last, and how everything ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... but this is a false relation. Marriage is a union of equals—equal interests being involved, equal duties at stake; and if any woman has been married to a man who chooses to take advantage of the laws as they now stand, who chooses to subject her, ignobly, to his will, against her own, to take from her the earnings which belong to the family, and to take from her the children which belong to the family, I hold that that woman, if she can not, by her influence, change this state of things, is solemnly obligated to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage |
